Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God

From Wall Street Journal (Eric Metaxas)

The odds of life existing om another planet grow ever longer. Intelligent design, anyone?

"...There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

See also the interview in FOX news with Eric Metaxas:

Christmas 2015

A Christmas Greeting

In an old song we sing ”He is coming...”. This is what Advent and Christmas are all about. In the different Bible scriptures of Advent Jesus is coming to us
-  as a small newborn child
-  like a King riding into Jerusalem, worshipped and praised by the crowds
-  as the future King who will once come back

That Jesus will come back is the main theme in the New Testament and Jesus says: “Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

While Jesus is preparing heaven for us, our task is to prepare ourselves for heaven.

Jesus left heaven and came to us on earth and it is here and now that we can meet Him.
-  We cannot meet Jesus as he is born as a little child.
-  We cannot meet Jesus as he is riding into Jerusalem.
-  We cannot meet Jesus today as He once will come back.

But, we believe that He is alive and that we can meet him here and now.
He is coming to us in our everyday life and that is where we can receive Him if we have open hearts.


Another year is coming to its end and we thank God for all we have experienced during this year.

We have been travelling a lot throughout the year. Our present ministry is partly to support and coach the new Lieutenants in the Norway, Island and Faroe Island territory. In connection with this, we have also been able to do Bible weekends and series of meetings in many different places; from the Faroe Islands and Island in the West to Vardö/Vatsö/Kirkenes in the East; and from Lyngdal in the South to Vardö/Vatsö/Kirkenes in the North. (Well, these towns are actually both the furthest North and the furthest East in Norway)

We wish you a Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year 2015.
Rut and Peter           

 (The picture above is from our balcony an early morning in December)

William Booth in Stockholm

Quotes from General William Booth´s speaches to the Swedish Salvation Army Officers during the Congress 1899:

Obviously there were five meetings. The following quotes are from the second meeting, where even Local Officers were invited and the General starts his speech like this:

My dear Comrades! This is a Congress for Staff- and Field Officers. If some of you Local Officers disapprove of the fact that you are not invited to all of the meetings, you should immediately sign up for candidateship! If you say that you are too old, that you are married and that you have settled down, in that case I feel sorry for you that you cannot come, but then we should get your oldest son or daughter instead! However, each Local Officer should regard it as their duty, from this moment on, to become an officer. Either he/she should become a candidate himself or he/she should send someone to replace him. If none of your soldiers can go you must try to get some suitable sinner saved. We must either have you, or someone else as a compensation for you!

After this introduction he is expressing his appreciation for the work of the Local Officers. He is talking about the importance of them using their opportunities to testify about Christ in their everyday life and at work. And then he says:

Our Local Officers have access everywhere (in society) and I wish you would appreciate your opportunities and know your responsibilities. One of the greatest curses that ever came over the Church was the idea that priests and missionaries were more responsible (for the work) than other Christians. Each soldier of Jesus Christ, each Salvation Army soldier is just as responsible as the Commissioners to commit themselves with spirit soul and body, life and all, for the glory of God and bringing salvation to sinners. Local Officers! You have your opportunities! Study them; Give yourselves fully in the hands of God and he will help you turn this country upside down.

Stockholm 2006-05-08

(From Booth, Ädelstenar (Precious Stones), Stockholm 1900)

The Salvation Army in the First World War

Will there be Family Reunions in Heaven? 3/3

From FSAOF blog (fsaof.blogspot.com

Part three  (3/3)

Will there be Family Reunions in Heaven? 

These questions were asked by the Sadducees. They asked if a woman had been married to seven different men, whose wife would she be in the next life.  Jesus’ response was: “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”  The passage ends with an even more baffling statement: “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living?” What does that mean?  Perhaps the whole thing is a non-answer to the question.  Or if it is an answer, it suggests that the afterlife is very different from the relationships we have in this life.

Paul says about resurrection that there are two kinds of bodies, “a physical and a spiritual body".  One is like a seed the other like a full grown plant.  Think how different the two are from each other. In Romans he assures us that we die into God.  He writes “we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”  So, if there is an afterlife, what will it be like?

John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest and physicist thinks he knows.  In his book the Faith of a Physicist, he writes: “the physical resurrection is a perfectly coherent hope, in which our souls function along the lines of DNA, carrying the unique pattern of each one inside our bodies, and when we die is used by God to create new bodies, in any future world of God’s choosing.”  

What do you think?  I must confess I don’t have a clue.  But I am confident that the One who raised me up in life will raise me up in death.  We die into God.  What more that means, I do not know, but that is all I need to know.

Dr. John Sullivan

Former Officer Canada

Ordained Minister at The United Church of Canada

Studied Homiletics and Liturgics at Claremont School of Theology
Princeton Theological Seminary and University of TorontoClaremont School of TheologyPrinceton Theological Seminary and University of Toronto
Salvation Army Traing College, Toronto

Will there be Family Reunions in Heaven? 2/2

From FSOF blog (fsaof.blogspot.com):

Part TWO 

The early Christians did not believe that there will be family reunions in heaven?. They believed that at the end of time there would be a general resurrection of the dead and people would then be given their reward or punishment; the Kingdom would appear with the Second Coming, and everyone would be brought back to life, to see and experience it.  

But the question remained, what happened to those who died before the end of the age?  Paul believed that when Christ would return “the dead in Christ would rise first, and the bodies of those still living would become immortal”.  This was also the view of John. He claimed that there would be a future resurrection, and that a New Jerusalem would descend from the sky and it would have gates of pearl and streets of gold; and that the saints would live forever here on earth.

When Jesus didn’t come soon, there began a long process of reinterpretation. The teaching of the resurrection of the body got transmuted into a message that judgment comes at the end of one’s life, with one’s soul going to one place or the other.  In short, the notion of the resurrection of the body became transformed into the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul.  Since then, the afterlife has been so central that it has been the primary motive, along with the fear of Hell, for being a Christian.

So what might we think?  Research on near-death experiences suggests that we do enter another realm at death, the tunnel, the bright light, the experience of leaving the body and seeing things from a vantage point outside the body.  Who knows what it all means?  If there is a blessed afterlife, and I am there, will I know that I am me?  

Will there be family reunions? If so, is this good or bad?

PART TWO (2/3)

Dr. John Sullivan

Former Officer Canada

Will there be Family Reunions in Heaven? 1/3

From FSAOF blog (fsaof.blogspot.com):

PROMOTED TO GLORY

Non-salvationists are often intrigued by the Army's use of the term 'promoted to Glory'. The Founder, William Booth, was convinced that the custom, then almost universally followed, of wearing black clothing heavily trimmed with somber crepe as a sign of mourning was opposed to the teaching of Christ. He believed that Christ is in deepest sympathy with our sorrows, but that he desires to make these sorrows stepping-stones to greater faith in a loving heavenly Father and deeper submission to his will.

In all his arrangements for times of bereavement the Founder aimed to show how sadness could be alleviated and death turned into victory. He introduced the cross-and-crown badge to be worn on the left arm by those bereaved.

For those who would otherwise have worn 'mourning' dress, this served as a token of abiding affection for the departed but was also a positive declaration of faith and hope. 

Every Salvation Army funeral is regarded as a valuable opportunity for comforting and strengthening the mourners and for urging the unsaved to seek and find salvation. The first simple edge-stonein Abney Park Cemetery which marked the resting-place of 'Catherine Booth, the Mother of The Salvation Army', asked every passer-by, 'Do you also follow Christ?' This was a model in memorial stones, consistent with the highest teaching of The Salvation Army. 

Memorial services were introduced, specifically to challenge the living with the witness of those who had themselves lived victoriously in Christ. The first of these was held on the first anniversary of Catherine Booth's death, in the Agricultural Hall-then one of London's largest buildings. It was impossible for the speakers to be heard in so large a hall, but each part of the service was indicated by large illuminated signs, so that the audience of some 15,000 could join in all the songs and prayers. Scenes from Mrs Booth's life and messages both from her writings and from those of the Founder were displayed on a great lantern screen. A similar service was held in connection with the promotion to Glory of the Founder himself.

"Will there be any stars in that crown I receive when I leave my earthly shroud behind?" (Swedish SA Songbook) 

Painting by Swedish artist and family friend Bengt Engman. 

The Salvationist asks that he be allowed to wear his red guernsey as his robes of white are presented in preparation for him to meet Jesus, family and friends.


The original painting hangs in the SA corps hall in the village of Vansbro, Sweden, the home town of the artist and where he was a Junior Soldier.

Dr. Sven Ljungholm
Former Officer
USA, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova
Birkenhead Corps, UK

_______________________________________

The concept of a bodily resurrection is one of the reasons some people do not become Christians.  In their minds it means that someday all the bodies of people who have ever lived will be reassembled.  For others, it means that what makes one unique will survive. Others believe that the moment one dies, one’s soul is translated into the joys of heaven, or assigned to the pains of hell.  

PART ONE (1/3)

Dr. John Sullivan

Former Officer Canada & Bermuda

Ordained Minister The United Church of Canada   

Studied Homiletics and Liturgics at Claremont School of Theology 

Princeton Theological Seminary
University of Toronto
Salvation Army Training College, Canada